News of his activities in recent months, of mutual Edinburgh acquaintances, and the Plinian Society.

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JC has given up natural history for a time to prepare himself better for medical practice.

Transcription

My dear Darwin

I confess I was rather illpleased to receive your letter in place of yourself, as I had
been looking for your arrival in Edinburgh every day for some weeks before;
Mr Barker having apprised me of your intention to visit us about
Christmas. However, as you may guess, even the letter received a hearty welcome. I hope
this will find you restored to health, and engaged in planning a descent upon Scotland
in the summer holidays. You ask me what I have been doing since I left Paris. I remained
in France till June, when I set out for Prussia with the hope of ascending the Rhine,
and travelling thro` Switzerland & the North of Italy. But I took ill in
Westphalia and was obliged to hurry home thro' Holland. I returned to Leith about the
end of July, in a state of health which prevented me from deriving pleasure even from
Natural History. I recovered very slowly, but now am quite well.

During the winter, I have been almost entirely engaged in practice, and have persevered
in my abjuration of Zoology, with a few reservations in favor of walks along the
Seashore & occasional visits to the Black rocks. I found
these localities, abounding in so many interesting associations, and offering an ever
varying succession of animals, to be more powerfully alluring even than the Jardin des
Plantes. Perhaps there is no real occasion for the greif which you express, in
imagining that I have entirely forsworn Natural History: I am still ready to agree with
you in the sentiment `that no pursuit is more becoming for a physician than Nat: Hist:'
and I feel myself as much, if not more, inclined than ever, to look into the World of
Nature around me, but I feel, that as I must soon enter upon the public & the
responsible discharge of the duties of my profession, I owe it as a duty of the highest
importance, both to others & to myself, to make up as perfectly as possible, the
deficiencies in useful knowledge which, I have too good reason to fear, my
devotion to science (unprofitable as it has been) has occasioned. You may depend upon
this, at least, that ``the good old Cause of Zoology'' is not slighted by me;
and of course, still less so, the friends in whose company I formerly prosecuted
it.—

Glasspoole left Paris in May with the intention of going
through Switzerland & Germany: I heard of his being in London in September; when
I believe Dr Grant saw him: and I have since
heard that he has settled in Brighton: or, at least, that he is living there. I
was happy to receive intelligence regarding Mr Hope: I am greatly
indebted to him for a valuable collection of types of the British genera of Coleoptera,
which he sent me, probably with the view of stimulating me in the study of Entomology;
but I have done very little in it. I am not unmindful of Mr Hope's
kindness, and although my long silence may appear to him a mark of ingratitude, and
unpardonable carelessness, I am not without some expectation of being able at some
future time to redeem my lost character in his eyes. You will probably have seen
Dr Grant by the time you receive this. If you should be in London, be
so good as present my kindest regards to him, and say, that I received his letter, and
intend answering it shortly. You ask me for Edinburgh news, but truly I know of none
worth giving you; excepting, indeed, that the Plinian
is flourishing most vigorously.— There are several very industrious young
naturalists in it at present; and Brown continues to lend his
matured experience in the presidency. David Ritchie has succeeded his father as minister
of the Parish of Tarbolton in Ayr. Your request about the
Carabidae I cannot answer. The only entomological information I can give you, is, that I
had an excellent opportunity in Westphalia of examining the singular habits of the
Bombyx processionaria (larva) described by Reamur. I verified
most fully all his interesting description. The caterpillars were particularly abundant
in the woods of Westphalia last year, and destroyed the leaves of almost all the oaks.
You are, of course, aware of the publication of Dr. Fleming's ``British
Animals'', and Mr Stark's ``elements of Natural
History.'' Dr. F's is a very valuable work but
Mr Stark's, being more general and more complete, will probably enjoy
the larger share of popularity. Dr Grant is engaged in the publication of
``Outlines of Zoology & Comparative Anatomy.''—

Be so good as write me again soon, and tell me something of the present state of
Natural History in Cambridge. Have you had any opportunity of studying marine Zoology
since you left this?—

CD's fellow medical student and friend at the University of Edinburgh. In the
Autobiography, p. 48, CD describes him as `prim, formal, highly
religious and most kind-hearted: he afterwards published some good zoological articles
[for Todd's Cyclopaediaof anatomy and physiology ].' He proposed CD for membership of the Plinian
Society (see n. 5 below).

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f2 58.f2

In a notebook in which CD recorded observations during the spring of
1827 there is the following entry: `Observed with Mr. Coldstream
at the black rocks at Leith an Asterias rubens' (DAR 118, p. 12).

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f3 58.f3

Frederick Bream Glasspoole.

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f4 58.f4

Robert Edmond Grant, CD's close associate and mentor in zoology at Edinburgh (see
Jespersen 1948--9 and Autobiography, pp. 49, 51). In
an article published in July 1827, on `the ova of the Pontobdella
muricata' Grant gave CD credit for being the first to identify them: `The merit of
having first ascertained them [the ova] to belong to that animal is due to my zealous
young friend Mr Charles Darwin of Shrewsbury, who kindly presented me with specimens of
the ova exhibiting the animal in different stages of maturity' (Grant 1827;
Darwin Library--CUL: `Philosophical tracts'). This was the first scientific discovery by
CD to be reported in print, though CD was not the first to make it (see
Ashworth 1935: 105--6).

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f5 58.f5

The Plinian Natural History Society was founded in 1823 by Robert Jameson.
Ashworth 1935 has a detailed account of the Society. For mention of
CD's reports to it, see the letter to Caroline Darwin, 6 January 1826,
n. 5.

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f6 58.f6

William Alexander Francis Browne.

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f7 58.f7

In December 1826 Ritchie successfully opposed the election of
Georges Cuvier and Johann Friedrich Blumenbach to honorary membership of the Plinian
Society (Gruber and Barrett 1974, p. 39).

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f8 58.f8

René-Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur. The Bombyx larva
is described in Réaumur 1734--42, 1: 172, pl. V.